Tea Time
by paynesgrey
Summary: It was very much like Sesshoumaru to seek out the sword once Inuyasha no longer had it. Eighty and five hundred some odd years later he had found her, an old woman and alone. Kagome. Sesshoumaru. Sword Cliche and Unromantic.


**Tea Time**

Kagome rather thought his appearances at her humble shrine were rather annoying, and his face soon became a poking reminder of a long buried past. It unnerved her, and while her knees and elbows ached from old age, he stood in her front doorway immaculate, perfectly healthy and lethal as if time had not even besmirched him.

His eyes were still very cold, staring at her expectantly as she led him inside. She limped on her bad foot through the living room into the kitchen, and she motioned with her head for him to sit on the couch even when she always knew he'd prefer to stand. He would always float around her living room, waiting and waiting until she bid him notice. He'd gaze at the same mediocre reproductions of Post-Modernist paintings, and always sneered at her 'horrible' taste in art.

"Tea, Sesshoumaru?" She brought the tea in, regarding him with strained civility. The annoyed tinge in her voice had been obvious she was forcing a smile for him and that she really didn't want him in her home drudging up old memories. She didn't want him _here_ because she had moved on, and having him waltz into her perfectly Feudal-free life, everything she had tried to forget had come back, slowly – and when painful memories came stirring back to a person whose bones were older, the progression of living was much _harder_ than her brain could take.

But he wasn't just after her company. Oh no, he was always after something much more precious. She should have only guessed that he would come to find her and try to take it away. She often hoped that she'd never see him again and that he'd forget the relic and settle on the fact that it'd been lost through the ages.

However, this was Sesshoumaru, and it was very much like him to seek out the sword with such vigilance. Eighty and five hundred some odd years later he had found her, an old woman and alone.

After all, Inuyasha had died a long time ago, not even in this time and not even with her name on his last breath.

Kagome's lips curled before she sipped on her tea. Sesshoumaru merely stared at his cup, but at least he had come to sit opposite of her. She wondered how he could be so mellow, why he did not take the sword by force.

"Will you not have any tea, Sesshoumaru?" She was egging him on, hurrying him in the moment and ready with her bad foot to kick him out the door. She felt anger swell in her belly like it always did.

It was a dishonor to Inuyasha's name, it was. She harrumphed. She was tired of the silence. She was too old to care for civilities. Her bones ached everyday from memory, of journeys taken, battles completed and of love that was lost.

How dare he come here and disrupt her peace!

"I _still_ will not give you the sword," she mentioned finally. There was no way that she'd dance around formalities now.

He glared at her. She wondered if he really wanted to be here either. Did her face remind him of a past that he wished to hold onto? Was it really about the sword? Why didn't he kill her when he was so good at killing in the past?

"It belongs to my house, of my blood. You do not need it nor _deserve_ it," he answered coolly, finally sipping his tea. His nose wrinkled and added, "Earl Grey – how disgusting."

Kagome slammed her cup down. "You say that every time you come here, and I say you're wrong." A lock of her white hair fell from out of her once-tight bun. Her face looked tired and ancient, and he could feel the anxiety rolling off her in waves.

She turned her head and looked at Tessaiga. It sat encased in a glass box and propped in front of her Buddha statue inside her small house shrine.

She looked at Sesshoumaru desperately with hints of fury. "You're despicable as you were then. You would deprive an old woman of her last treasure of the one she loved –" she was crying now, tears flowing down the creases of her aged face.

Sesshoumaru remained frozen as he watched her. He offered no sympathy or condolences. He was slightly perturbed because every time he came it would always come to this, this old woman crying like a little girl stuck in a horrid yet comfortable past.

"Let me relieve you of your pain, old woman."

"I can't," she whispered. She clutched herself tightly as if he was going to take her spirit, a devil to whisk away her soul.

"He's been dead for too long, and he did not love you in the end, not in the way you wanted," Sesshoumaru responded, watching the pain grow more intense on her face. His truth was not the peace she wanted, not the comfort she felt she deserved.

"No," she finally said. She was always stubborn and she would not back down from him now.

After a period of awkward silence, Sesshoumaru got up from her couch and patted at his wrinkled slacks. He buttoned a button on his suit coat and flipped his stray locks behind his shoulders. He picked up his briefcase and proceeded to the door.

Kagome sniffled and stared in a daze at the half-empty teacup on the other side of her table. She grunted as he opened the front door.

"I will return," he said finally, although the announcement was not needed. She knew he would return – he always did until he got his way. He added before closing the door, "You will die soon, Kagome, and you have no surviving relatives. And when you die, I will finally obtain it." She heard the door creak half-shut. "It will not be long."

She gritted her teeth. 'Arrogant ass!' she seethed, feeling a slight pain in her chest. She felt a wave of lethargy wash over her, so she settled back into her couch for a rest.

She sighed in bitterness and growing relief. Why didn't he just take it? Why must he come every week for the damned sword if he knew she was going to die?

Is he just waiting things out until she died? Did he refuse to kill her because she was just going to die soon anyway?

She imagined the small, superior smirk on his face when he looked at her, her mortality his edge to acquire _her_ sword easily – the sword given to her by Inuyasha before he died. So Sesshoumaru was waiting for her to die? She scoffed.

She was only sixty-five, and although she was old and her body was withering, her spirit was not. She bit her lip and determination illuminated her aged face, and she felt reminiscent of her strength when she was a young girl.

She would not die yet. She cracked a confident smile.

Sesshoumaru will have a lot longer to wait than he thinks, and she would take pleasure in every day that the sword was not within his grasp.

THE END


End file.
